11 August, 2017

‘The Trip to Spain’ Is Steve Coogan’s Tapas-Fueled Adventure

British funnymen Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back with the third installment of their dining-comedy series, The Trip to Spain. Following gastronomical tours of England and Italy, along with lots of dry banter, Coogan and Brydon are hitting the road to feast on some of the world’s best tapas and pintxos. The film, which originally aired in the United Kingdom as a six-part series on Sky Atlantic, is now showing in U.S. theaters.

Over the course of an hour and 55 minutes, the duo hits six restaurants: Txoko (in the city of Getaria), Etxebarri (Atxondo), La Posada del Laurel (Préjano), Nola (Cuenca), Parador de Almagro (Al Magro), and El Refectorium (Málaga).

The Trip to Spain has picked up mostly positive reviews, scoring a 65 rating on Metacritic. RogerEbert.com’s Glen Kenny awards three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying the trilogy is “the only movie franchise that matters” because the individual movies “have absolutely no concern with being the kinds of pictures that ‘matter.’” However, Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times says that, in the third go-round for The Trip, Coogan and Brydon’s schtick has gotten stale: “Barely squeaking by on a familiar formula and flimsy narrative … the actors convey a sense of going through the motions.”